


A Rose By Any Other Name

by Descended_from_Hufflepuffs



Series: AU-gust 2020 [27]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019), Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: AU-gust 2020, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, First Meetings, Language of Flowers, M/M, Malcolm is oblivious, Patton has a crush, Slow Burn, for now, updates will likely be slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26139400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Descended_from_Hufflepuffs/pseuds/Descended_from_Hufflepuffs
Summary: “Hello! Welcome to Sunshine Meadows! I’m Patton, your happy-pappy-flower-loving-fellow! What can I do for you?”
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Patton Sanders
Series: AU-gust 2020 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859431
Kudos: 6





	A Rose By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> This is no way connected to my other Prodigal Son/Sanders Sides Crossover. I just got the ship idea and *whoosh*

Malcolm stepped into the flower shop with no real awareness of what he was doing. After a long night of night terrors, he'd just needed to get out. With no case to solve, he decided to just go for a walk and ended up getting lost. So now here he was. Oh well. He needed a gift to thank Colette for ‘finishing’ the Junkyard killer case. The thought made him want to vomit but Mother was very insistent. Flowers were impersonal and not rude, right?

“Hello! Welcome to Sunshine Meadows!” called a young man behind the counter, presumably the owner. “I’m Patton, your happy-pappy-flower-loving-fellow! What can I do for you?”

This was way too much positive energy for this early in the morning, even when he wasn’t sleep deprived. “Umm…. I need flowers for a work thing.”

“Oh? You don’t seem too excited about it….” Patton snapped his fingers. “You really don’t like the person you’re getting a gift for and you figured flowers would be easy and also not rude.”

Malcolm, for the first time in a long time, was momentarily stunned into silence. “Uh...Yeah, actually. They’re for a former coworker and we didn’t really get along when we worked together….”

Patton hummed softly and walked around to the shop area. “Well, flowers are a good gift when you don’t really know what to get someone but they have an added bonus: flower language.”

That was a semi-familiar concept. “Okay…. What are you suggesting?”

Patton shrugged innocently. “Oh, nothing much really just….” He picked up a yellow carnation. “All flowers are beautiful, which can make it easy to hide any icky feelings you might have for another person. Not a lot of people bother learning how to speak flower so whoever you're sending these to probably won’t notice anything weird.”

Well, this was promising. “That’s...clever. What do you recommend?”

“Well, now that depends on how strong your feelings are.” Patton picked up a few more flowers, including basil and tansy. “Some are really, really bad and others are kinda ‘meh’. I can walk you through it if you want.” He smiled brightly and beckoned Malcolm to the counter.

Oh this was definitely promising. “Well….”

They spent the next two hours going over exactly what Malcolm wanted to say. He knew Colette would hate it regardless but he did like the idea of passive spite being sent right to her desk in DC. But more than that, he was really interested in Patton’s energy about the whole thing. When he first introduced himself, he seemed so nice, like that one friend who can never say anything bad about anyone ever. But his willingness to help Malcolm in his efforts for passive-aggressive tension showed a darker side. He liked it.

“Alright, that should be it!” Patton wrote up an invoice and Malcolm paid with his mother’s card (it was her idea, she can pay for it).

“Thank you for all your help.”

“Oh, it was no problem friendo! I’ll see you around.”

\-----------

Patton did a happy dance as the cute boy left the store. His horoscope said he would run into someone wonderful today and he just knew that was it. He was so cute and funny and smart and interesting to talk to and-

And he forgot to get his name.

_ Oh dear. _


End file.
